I really hated to start my day off with a dramatic chase scene, but this time I didn’t have an option.
I guess I should introduce myself before I get into this story. My name is Mr. Fluffikins. I have a pet human called Henry Stickmin. He happens to be a secret agent, but that’s not important. What’s important is tuna. Tuna tuna tuna. The only reason I keep my pet human around is that he can get me a constant supply of tuna. If you haven’t noticed, I’m a cat. The kings of animals. The rulers of humans. The eaters of tuna. Well, enough about me. Back to the story.
I knew it was going to be a bad day when two masked men broke into our hotel room through the window. The morning sun peered through the broken glass, caressing me in a warm embrace and haloing my fur. I’m pretty sure I looked awesome. I, unlike Henry, had not been asleep but wide awake and ready for action. Before I could use my incredible kung-fu fighting skills to put the two thugs down, Henry wrapped an arm around me and bolted out the door. Coward. He tapped on his earpiece. “Oi HQ! What in the world is happening!? It’s only 5 in the morning and I’m already being chased down by some assassins!” Apparently focused on something inaudible coming over his earpiece, he didn’t notice more bad guys coming after us from out of an alley. Which meant it was now up to me to save our butts.
I squirmed out of Henry’s grasp and clawed my way up to his shoulder. From my perch, I could see they were catching up to us. Naturally, I took the most dangerous option. Henry stumbled a little when I lept off his shoulder and onto a nearby hot dog cart. He’d be fine. The hot dog guy jumped in surprise, throwing his half-finished hot dog up and squeezing the mustard bottle, causing a stream of mustard to spray into the first goon’s eyes. Goon #1 yelled and flailed wildly, hitting the hot dog directly into our second pursuer, who tripped and fell headfirst into a conveniently open sewer. At the same time, the hot dog cart, which was on a downhill slope, started rolling, with me hitching a ride. As it was passing Henry, I jumped off onto his head. The cart kept going, narrowly missing an old lady and eventually crashing into a bakery store’s front window. Henry turned to me and was about to start scolding me when he saw the two groaning thugs on the sidewalk behind us.
“Wow I know I’m good, but how did I do that?”
Then, without even bothering to debrief me on what was going on, he rushed off, carrying me on his shoulder. He must have been really distracted because he passed right by an ice cream stand and didn’t even stop for a scoop. We rounded a corner and Henry ducked into a side alley. He pried the cover off a manhole and I groaned inwardly. In my opinion, we spent all too much time in the sewers. They’re wet, icky, and no place for a cat. As Henry clambered down the ladder into the dark confines, my amazingly speedy brain whirred into action trying to figure out what was happening. Unfortunately, just as I was about to conclude my thinking process, Henry distracted me by smacking his head on the ladder as he jumped down. “Ugh”, he groaned and then promptly passed out. Great. Just then, a scrap of paper slipped out of his pocket. I padded over to Henry, who was snoring gently. The slip fluttered threateningly from the wind coming through the open manhole overhead so I slapped it with a paw. Scribbled on it, in rather shaky handwriting it said: ‘3687 Wellbridge Road’.
It was a location on the west side of town. However, I didn’t understand why in the name of tuna we had to travel by sewer to get there. After memorizing the address, I leaped onto the ladder out of the sewer to get out. I’ll spare you from the many extremely dignified and graceful falls. As everybody knows, cats have an innate sense of direction and I had already memorized the entire city’s urban sprawl. (I may have also gotten some help from the nearby map.) It wasn’t far to 3687 Wellbridge Road and I arrived within minutes. It was a completely inconspicuous location, wedged between a McDonald’s and Starbucks. A single door broke the monotony of the 2 story brick building, engraved with pictures of cats. That’s right. Even bad guys understand the value of us amazing felines. However well-mannered these bad guys were though, they probably had some sort of vile plan like blowing up all the tuna on the planet or something like that. Some sort of havoc-wreaking scheme. Luckily, they had a pet flap near the floor, so I walked through it. While crooks and criminals always install the newest, most expensive, high-tech security systems, they always make that one stupid mistake. They underestimate us cats. Unfortunately, I soon discovered why they had a pet flap. WOOF! GRR-WOOF! My hair stood up on its end as an enormous pit bull bounded through the doorway ahead of me.
I started revising my obituary but then something saved me. The leash. The dog, flying full tilt at me, suddenly stopped short, caught by the short length of rope around its neck. It skidded to a halt, inches from my face. As the dog strained against its leash to get to me, I took the opportunity to take a closer look at my surroundings. A well-furnished entrance hall with a nice rug greeted guests. An arched hallway led to a set of stairs, no doubt to the second floor. A clomping pair of feet landed on the staircase.
“What now Rufus?” a man’s voice called.
Rufus. A classic evil dog name. Well, to tell you the truth, I’ve met a variety of different evil dogs. One was a radioactively altered, three-eyed, no-legged, hairless, purple, omniscient chihuahua named Spongetta. And it was 314159265355820974944 years old. Don’t ask. I watched as a wide sturdy frame slowly appeared from the bottom up as the feet descended the stairs. Eventually, a burly, thuggish-looking henchman revealed himself. The lackey then let out a surprisingly girlish squeal upon seeing me.
“Well, wouldya look at that! Boss has been going on about getting a cat to stroke while he executes his evil plans and here walks one right through the door!”
With that, the extremely sweaty, muscle-bound guy picked me up into his arms and carried me up the staircase. He then brought me down another hall and knocked on a door.
“Come in,” a cold voice answered.
Whoever “boss” was, they sat in a spinning chair facing away from us. The room was sparsely furnished with the only furniture being the large wooden desk on our side of the room. On top of the desk was some cheese (nasty), a half-full glass of water, and a briefcase. Let this be a note to all aspiring spy kittens out there, briefcases are always bad news.The chair slowly turned around and I almost died of the suspense. But where I expected the stereotypical evil villain, there was only… a hamster. The little rodent squeaked once, albeit quite ferociously. Somehow I didn’t notice the man next to the hamster in the chair, but apparently, he translated for the hamster.
“Signore Hamster says this cat will be perfect. Well done. Now leave,” he said to the henchman.
How he got that all from one squeak I had no idea. Mr. Muscles shuffled out of the room, leaving me, the hamster, and his translator. The hamster squeaked again.
“Signore Hamster says if you do not behave, he will press the button early. The button blows up all the international reserves of tuna.”
I nearly hacked up a hairball in shock. This was an evil plan that I simply had to stop. With luck, the translator also spoke cat.
“Meow meow, meow meow HISSS,” I said to the interpreter.
He turned and said something to the hamster in a series of squeaks. For all you humans out there, I said: if you don’t get rid of that button now, I will eat you.
The hamster launched into a tirade of squeaks. I had never seen a hamster look so ferocious. At this point, I was tired of yakkity yak yak and decided to take action. Drawing upon my endless reserves of agility, I leaped onto the desk. Then, I tripped over the half-eaten wheel of brie cheese and slammed into a glass of water. The water spilled onto the oaken desk and trickled onto the briefcase. As the first drop landed on the circuitry of the trigger, smoke and sparks erupted, scaring Signore Hamster off his chair. Just then, Henry, who I had totally forgotten about, rammed through the door, and pointed his handgun at everyone in the room. “Everyone handss…?” He stopped mid-sentence as he took in the chaos. “Fluffikins was this all you?” I smiled to myself as I thought about the tasty tuna dinner I would have back home for a job well done.
AJ Writes 